Danish Church Art(e.g. "Late Antiquity")

DANISH CHURCH FRESCOES: A CLUE TO MEDIEVAL
IRISH ART?

>EIRE-IRELAND Vol XIV:1 Spring 1979 Revised
3/96.

James Mills

The student of Irish culture lacks one resource
available to the Continental student: the church frescoes from
A.D. 900 to A.D. 1652. Throughout Western Europe there is a
continuum of churches from the earliest to the latest, and a
study of the frescoes gives the scholar an insight into the
culture at the time that they were painted. For one reason or
another, such frescoes did not survive in Ireland. From the
earliest times, the #internecine wars of the Irish took their
toll. The Annals of Ulster list 25 or more churches destroyed
during these disputes, and in 1120, over 70 churches in Desmond
were destroyed during a raid by Connachtmen. [1] The Viking
raiders destroyed more. Some blame the loss of wall paintings
on the Reformation, but in fact, the Reformation under Henry
VIII simply took over the churches and preserved their structure
and art, since they were now state property. It was not until
Cromwell that the Puritan concepts required the destruction of
traditional church art in Ireland and Great Britain.

The proposal that a study of Danish church frescoes
might provide some idea of the appearance, both inside and out,
of Irish churches during the period 900-1652 might seem absurd
were it not for historical realities. There are relationships
that can be established between the churches of Ireland and
Denmark that encourage the belief that the Danish church
frescoes would give information about what frescoes that may
have existed in the churches of Ireland before the #Cromwellian
Wars.

One relationship is in the architecture, and to a lesser
extent, the materials of construction. The early Irish church,
like the Scandinavian, was of wooden construction. De Breffny
quotes a number of sources to show that many of the early Irish
churches were constructed of wood.[2] The raiders, both Irish
and Norse, used fire as the simplest means of destruction. From
a sketch given by De Breffny, it is clear that the same general
architecture, stave construction, was used in building both
Irish and Scandinavian churches. [3] Further, in 1186, the
Archbishop of Dublin prohibited the use of the wooden altar to
serve Mass, a practice common in Ireland. When stone or brick
became the material for construction, the link with Scandinavia
is evident. Still extant are three Danish churches built during
the 12th century in Dublin, Howth, and Waterford. Another, St.
Mary's, was built in Dublin in the I2th century. A fifth
surviving church in Limerick was built about the same time, but
is undated. Historically, the Danish settlements in Ireland
retained close ties with Scandinavia and it is logical to assume
that the church construction and decoration in the home land
were influenced by the religious architecture of Ireland..

When we turn to architectural detail and decoration,
further relationships are found. The description of a wooden
church in Ireland, St. Brigid's at Kildare, includes
descriptions of painted interior walls. The painting in the
stave church at Urnes in Norway is styled "Irish Nordic" by
Deitrichson and dated about 1100. [4] Anker also points out that
Shetelig relates the placing of the carvings on the north wall
to a style common from Sweden through Norway and Denmark to
Britain and Ireland during the period 1050-1100.[5] A third
point of contact arises from the fact that Ireland had close
relations with a section of Germany, that, in its turn, had
close relations with the Danish church. The movement of Irish
clergy, which founded the Irish monasteries from the Rhine to
the Danube, had other consequences, for this movement was
two-way: while the Irish were moving to the Continent, the
Continental scholar in search of further education, was coming
into Ireland. It was during this period that the Romanesque
architectural style appeared in Ireland.

There are a number of Romanesque remains in Ireland,
but, in the interest of brevity, only Cormac's Chapel at Cashel
will be considered. O'Brien states that Cormac McCarthy, King
of Munster, brought masons from the Continent to build the
chapel. [6] De Breffny relates the design of Cormac's Chapel to
the Abbey Church of Murbach in Alsace on the west bank of the
Rhine. [7] In this period, Irish prelates were known to have
lived in Wuerzburg, Cologne, Metz, Erfurt, Regensberg, Aachen,
Fulda, Speier, and Mainz in the Rhineland, and at St. Martin's
in Tours. All of these towns have churches with Romanesque
frescoes. Under these circumstances, it seems likely that the
Irish church of the same period would have had similar frescoes.

During this period, the Danish Church was under the See
of Hamburg-Bremen, and Hjort calls attention to the frescoes at
Hildesheim, in Germany, and connects them with those in the
church at Kirke-Hyllinge in Denmark [8] Saxtorp believes that
the frescoes in Ringsted and Broendom, in Denmark, were painted
by artists from Saxony. [9] He also relates the early Romanesque
frescoes in Denmark to the Italian of the same period, the high
Gothic to the French and the late Gothic to the Netherlands and
northern Germany. [10] Saxtorp's belief that the early
Romanesque frescoes showing Byzantine influence are derived from
the Italian is supported by Anderson. Anderson believes that
this came about because Denmark is poor in stone, and those
interested in building churches - King Valdemar, Bishop Absalom,
and Esbern Snare - imported bricklayers and other artisans to
build the first brick churches in Denmark. [11]

Another point of similarity came about because of the
great monastic houses. The Cistercians, for example, had 300
houses in a region that stretched from Ireland to Slovenia and
from Scandinavia to Sicily. While the greater number of
Cistercian houses in Ireland were founded from the mother house
in Clairvaux, four were founded from England, and three from
Wales. The first Cistercian monasteries in Norway were founded
from England. Esrom, on the Danish of island of Zealand was
founded from Clairvaux, and there were at least four other
Cistercian houses in Denmark at Soroe, Vistkoel, Om and
Loegumkloster. Since it was the practice of these orders to
copy the general floor plan and style of the mother house, it is
reasonable to assume that this practice extended to details of
interior decoration. In general these structures in Denmark and
Ireland would, outwardly and inwardly, be similar - subject, of
course, to local materials and techniques.

To summarize, a number of relationships suggest that the
churches of Ireland and Denmark had many features in common. At
the time of the wooden church in Ireland, the stave construction
and decorations were common to both cultures. Later, the
masonry churches built by the Danes in Ireland very likely
followed the Scandinavian tradition and probably influenced the
Irish. The direct connection between Ireland and the Rhineland
infiuenced the development of a common church style. The
Rhineland, in turn, had an influence on Danish church
decoration. The spread of the monastic houses was another close
tie between the Danish and Irish churches.

There is some evidence that churches of Ireland
contained frescoes. In 1968, this writer found traces of
pigment on the walls of the Cathedral at Cashel. Writing of the
church in the Cistercian Abbey of Knockmoy, De Breffny states:
"The barely visible medieval frescoe on the north wall of the
chancel is one of the few surviving in Ireland; it was painted
about 1400." 12 The early Irish church was probably decorated in
the same styles and themes common throughout Europe in the same
period. If the speculations presented in this paper are valid,
then it is likely that the frescoes in the Irish church were
similar, in style and theme, to those of the Danish churches of
the same period. What, then, would the frescoes in the Irish
church have looked like?

Demus lists 109 churches with Romanesque frescoes in
Italy, France, Spain, England, Germany and Austria.[13] Saxtorp
lists 77 churches in Denmark with frescoes from the same period.
[14] Of the 525 churches in Denmark with frescoes, 475 have
murals dating between 1150 and 1600, from the Romanesque to the
Renaissance, the greatest number having been painted during the
Gothic period. Between the time of the conversion, A. D. 960,
and 1250, some 1500 churches were built in Denmark. While only
a third remain standing, the explosion of construction at that
time was such that few have been built since. The earliest
Romanesque churches were of masonry, and, as the population
grew, Gothic additions were added to the original structures to
provide for the growth of the congregation. It is not uncommon
to find in one village church three architectural styles, each
with frescoes representative of its respective period. In fact,
there are 18 churches in Denmark with frescoes from two periods,
10 with frescoes from three periods, and one, Keldby, with four
periods. In Keldby, the earliest frescoes are transitional
between the Romanesque and the early Gothic, dated 1275; early
Gothic frescoes, dated I325; late Gothic frescoes painted by the
Elmelunde masters in 1460; and a minor piece dated 1600. When
the Danes adopted Lutheranism, the churches continued to be
painted, now with Lutheran iconography. When the Danish
equivalent of Purtianism developed, Pietism, the churches being
Crown property, were left untouched. The old frescoes were
simply whitewashed over and preserved for later generations.

The Romanesque frescoes in Denmark displays the usual
motifs: Christ in majesty, flanked by saints, his feet upon the
ball of Earth, the Bible in his left hand, and his right raised
in benediction. The face of the arch separating the chancel and
the nave customarily showed the shrine of the Madonna on the
left, and the patron saint of the church on the right. The
lower surface of the arch presented religious figures to the
left and right and an Agnus Dei at the top. Where the surviving
nave is Romanesque - as in Maalov, fifteen minutes from the
center of Copenhagen - you find on the north wall the Betrayal
of Christ showing Judas and the soldiers; in another scene,
Christ before Pilate. Under these frescoes, Abraham may be seen
with the souls in his bosom; an angel playing a musical
instrument; a picture of Christ with outstretched arms, possibly
the remains of a Crucifixion. On the south wall are the remains
of a large Crucifixion scene. The colors used in these frescoes
are the same as those used in the Celtic illuminated
manuscripts: reds, brown, greens, blue, and metallic gold.
Aside from the religious themes described above, other
decorations appear. The frescoes themselves are framed in
geometric designs and, in Aals, the lower border of the frescoes
consists of a battle scene of men on horseback fighting with
shield and sword. Saxthorp reports that this kind of battle
scene has also been found in England. The Gothic frescoes,
filling the spaces created by the ribs of the Gothic arch, are
less rigid. The Romanesque fresco is rectangular, following the
Romanesque wall space. The Gothic fresco is bounded by curved
lines. Each curved space becomes a vignette of a Biblical
story, and the succession of arches tells the whole tale: the
Annunciation next to the Nativity, followed by the Flight to
Egypt; the Betrayal in the Garden, the Appearance before Pilate;
the Flogging of Christ and the Via Dolorosa, But, in the Gothic,
while the major story takes up most of the area, the lower
corners are devoted to other forms. Unicorns and other fabulous
animals are found; grotesque masks are shown; hunters with bows
and horns go on their way. The stories told often have human
touches. In one church, while the Wise Men adore Christ, Joseph
sits down before the fire eating his supper. Allegories are
told: the story of the swiftly growing grain; the prayers of the
rich man contrasted with those of the poor man; devils keeping
the butter from coming while the good wife is churning; devils
souring the beer by urinating into the barrel, spoiling the
bread by defecating into the flour, or creating winds and waves
that sink ships at sea.

In the Gothic period, the judgment scene becomes alive
with action. The devils drag the doomed souls into the Mouth
of Hell in chains. The flames erupt from the open mouth and,
in the crowd of sinners, one can see a king, a pope, a bishop,
and abbess, and a friar. In one church a devil pushes a woman
into Hell's mouth in a wheelbarrow. The tortures of Hell are
shown in detail. The wall is alive with the contrasts of the
saved and the damned. And there are moral admonitions: the
Wheel of Fortune and the Memento Mori. In Saeby, one can view
the old man dying and his soul being received by the angel, to
the dismay of the hovering devil. In the lower lefthand corner,
the servant is pouring beer for the young wife and her lover.
The wife has her arm around her lover's waist while he is
running his hands through the money chest. Above the scene the
moral is clearly stated: "You may be dead, but your gold is red."

What do such frescoes imply for the student of Irish
history and culture? There can be little doubt that the
churches of Ireland were decorated with frescoes similar to
those found in the churches of the Continent. The Irish
artist-scholars who embellished the Book of Kells with page
after page of paintings, and who used the space between the
lines of text to show a fish or a running dog, would likely have
covered the walls of their church with frescoes. Since the
early Celtic church had richly worked altar vessels, and the
prelates had finely wrought croziers and embroidered robes, was
it likely that they would have left the House of God without
ornamentation? Although the frescoes of Ireland are gone, they
may have had an influence on the daily life of the Irish. How
can this influence be estimated? Only through a study of extant
frescoes in other countries. The student of Irish culture must
look to those countries where the frescoes remain in the small
village church, Medieval Denmark. As a matter of record, a
group of artists who painted the frescoes in Brarup, in Denmark,
are known to have worked in seven other Danish churches and to
have painted in several churches in southern Sweden, at that
time part of Denmark, where they are known as the Everlov
Masters. It may well be appropriate for the student of Irish
history to study the frescoes of the Scandinavian churches to
find if they will contribute to a better understanding of
medieval Ireland.